Amazon on its way to Sweden - Fears grip high street booksellers and tax officials
Saturday, 13 July 2013
The U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon is approaching Sweden. This week the
company is said to have started a partnership with the mobile operator
"three" reports the Swedish business daily, Dagens Industri on Friday.
Swedish booksellers and publishers have dreaded the day Amazon would
say they want to enter the Swedish market. Now the U.S.
e-commerce giant has tipped toed into the Swedish market by allowing
the mobile operator 3 to become the first to install the Amazon app on
smart phones which they give out to subscribers. The app is effectively
a mobile version of the e-commerce site, the newspaper, Dagens Industri
said.
It is unclear if 3 would get paid by Amazon for the service. It is
clear, however, that the agreement is not exclusive, meaning that it is
likely to fall into the lap of other mobile operators and they would
love surfer to use their services to access the popular US retailer
which is coming t their market.
According to 3's Communications director, Erik Hörnfeldt, cooperation
between the two companies will intensify with time. "I can not say when
the next step will be or what it is about. But there's more to come" he
says to Dagens Industri.
Amazon is growing rapidly internationally. As many as 40 percent of its
sales today comes from markets outside the U.S.. The company has
marketed itself aggressively in recent months, including lowering the
price of its e-book reader, Kindle in Europe.
Amazon was founded in 1995 and was initially a pure online bookstore.
Since then, the online retailer has grown to become the world's
largest, with sales of including DVDs, children's clothing and toys.
The company currently has sites targeted to ten countries outside the
U.S.. at this moment. One can order goods to Sweden from its UK site.
Amazon has been criticised in other countries though for dodging tax
contributions. It's UK subsidiary was accused of paying £2.4million in
corporate taxes in 2012, despite making sales of £4.3billion.
It was reported thus that the company's taxes are relatively low
compared to sales because the company earns its profits in Luxembourg,
which is a tax haven.
by Scancomark.com Team